Summary
They may seem poles apart in terms of age and experience, butStar Trek: Deep Space Nine’s Chief O’Brien (Colm Meaney) andStar Trek: Voyager’s Ensign Harry Kim (Garrett Wang) have one weird thing in common. In terms of their obvious similarities, neither Chief O’Brien nor Harry Kim had an easy time on their respectiveStar Trekshows. For example, Harry Kim was killed four separate times duringVoyager’s seven seasons, whileDS9’s Chief had such a hard time that he invented a wholeO’Brien Must Suffersubgenre ofStar Trekepisode.
Both Chief O’Brien and Ensign Harry Kim had a positive friendship with slightly arrogant fellow Starfleet officers. Chief O’Brien’s friendship with Doctor Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig) onStar Trek: Deep Space Nineis one of the franchise’s greatest partnerships, built on affectionate rivalry and mutual respect. Meanwhile, Harry Kim’s friendship withStar Trek: Voyager’s Tom Paris(Robert Duncan McNeill) brought the untested young officer out of his shell. However, neither Tom Paris nor Doctor Bashir could save Harry Kim and O’Brien from a bizarre shared tragedy.
I Love Chief O’Brien, But I Don’t Want Him To Come Back To Star Trek
Colm Meaney’s Chief O’Brien is a beloved TNG and DS9 character, but that doesn’t mean he should return to the modern Star Trek franchise.
Star Trek: DS9’s Chief O’Brien And Voyager’s Harry Kim Have 1 Weird Thing In Common
Both Chief O’Brien and Harry Kim have died, only to be replaced by a version of themselves from another timeline.InStar Trek: Deep Space Nineseason 3, episode 17, “Visionary”, Chief O’Brien is exposed to radiation that enables him to jump through time. O’Brien’s time jumps expose a plot to destroy the station by the Romulans, but they also result in him dying from radioactive exposure. Before he dies, Prime O’Brien sends his future self back in time to save the station. From this moment on, Future O’Brien replaces Prime O’Brien onDS9, causing a momentary existential crisis for the Chief.
On reflection, science advisor André Bormanis told theStar Trek: Deep Space Companionthat the use of radiation to trigger Chief O’Brien’s time jumps was “a little campy”.
InStar Trek: Voyagerseason 2, episode 21, “Deadlock”, the USS Voyager is duplicated, which leads to the two Voyagers accidentally damaging each other with a series of proton bursts. The proton bursts cause a severe hull rupture, which sends “our” Harry Kim hurtling into the vacuum of space. When the duplicated Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) was forced to enable a self-destruct sequence, she sent her Harry Kim to “our” Voyager with the newborn Naomi Wildman. Which means thatVoyager’s Naomi Wildmanalso joins Chief O’Brien and Harry Kim’s unique club.
Replacing Chief O’Brien On DS9 Satisfied A Star Trek: TNG Ambition
Killing off Chief O’Brien and replacing him with his future self was the closest that Ronald D. Moore came to fulfilling an ambition he had duringStar Trek: The Next Generation. While working onTNGseason 6, episode 24, “Second Chances” introduced Thomas Riker (Jonathan Frakes), Moore and the writing team considered killing off Commander William T. Riker and replacing him with his transporter clone.Rick Berman vetoed the idea, due to the tentative plans for aseries ofTNGmovies, as he recalled inCaptains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages:
“Basically, you’re putting a character on the ship who has not experienced anything of the last six years and doesn’t know any of the characters.”
IntroducingCommander Riker’s cloneas a regular would have been a dramatic change ahead ofStar Trek: The Next Generation’s final season. However, Berman’s veto does partly explain why Harry Kim and Chief O’Brien’s deaths and swift replacements never really changed anything onStar Trek: Deep Space NineandStar Trek: Voyager. Both Chief O’Brien and Harry Kim’s replacements retained those characters' experiences, they just had one or two later memories that their predecessor never possessed.
